


The Ones Left Behind

by NervousAsexual



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I have one setting when it comes to romance, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, and it seems to be ANGST, hopefully it's angst with a hopeful ending though, i dunno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: After they escape the Fade, Alistair and Cadash find they're more alike than they thought.(a treat for Sumi)





	The Ones Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



He cries for a while.

She watches, confused. Did their time in the fade hurt him somehow? Or at least, did it hurt him more than the preceding battle?

Varric hadn't cried. Not that she hadn't expected him to. Dwarves from the surface never cry. They've already lost the Stone, what other grief could compare? But Varric had had reason to grieve. The look on his face, half-hopeful, half already knowing, when he'd asked, "...Hawke?" It had hurt just to imagine how to explain what had happened, but he'd known just from the expression on her face.

Alistair, however, cries.

It's a Chantry mother who comes to comfort him, one Cadash has never seen before. Her hand on his back, steering him toward a darkened tent on the edge of the makeshift camp there at Adamant.

Cadash follows. After all, there is a chance that this is not a friend and perhaps isn't even a Chantry mother. No one else seems to be looking after the Grey Warden, and Alistair is too important to lose, especially after all that has happened.

But the Chantry mother ushers Alistair into the tent and walks back toward the troops. As she passes she bows her head to Cadash and says, "Herald."

Cadash gives her a smile, hopefully one that's not too confused. She goes to the tent herself and has a peek inside, just to be sure.

It appears to be just a tent, one like every other tent she's been in since joining the crusade for this lost cause, bedrolls running tightly in lines across the dirt floor in the weak light from the lantern. Alistair paces from one side of the tent to the other. He is still weeping.

"Ser Therin?" she asks.

He turns to her sharply, fumbling for his sword. She raises both hands to show him she is a friend.

"You rogues," he says. His hand pulls back from the sword and hovers at his throat, toying with something there. "Always..." A hiccup grips him for a moment and he grimaces. "Always sneaking up on innocent people."

"Sorry." She can't help but stare. "I wanted to be sure you were... not hurt."

He gives a little half-chuckle and moves to take off his plate armor. Though unbroken it's dented and tarnished. He leans the plate against his legs and lifts the padding to show her the bruises layered thick across his front.

"'s okay," he says. "It only hurts when I breathe." He is not looking at her but over her, staring at something far away.

"Demons?"

"Wardens." He presses the fingers of one hand into his ribs and screws up his face as something gives beneath them.

"You ought to be at the infirmary."

He smooths the padding back down over himself and wipes at his tears with the heel of his hand. "You're one to talk."

She stares at him and he nods his head toward her side. Her fingers creep across her own armor and snag on torn leather. She looks down and finds three jagged tears running together along her coat, all the way through to her skin and through it as well.

"I didn't even notice," she marveled. There was blood there, oozing through but not gushing. "One of the pride demons must have nicked me."

Alistair lets the armor clatter to the ground. He turns away silently, but not before Cadash sees the fresh tears spilling over his face.

"I hate those things." She forces herself to keep talking, unwilling to go back outside and face the people who look to her, to face Varric again. "They're too big and their armor is too thick and it always looks like they're wearing underpants made of rock."

He gives an unexpected chuckle that melds with a sob. "I never thought of that. They do, don't they."

She circles around, only half aware that she is doing so. He turns as well, and sinks down onto a bed roll.

"Why were you crying?" she asks. Her mouth feels dry. She is trying to uncover a well better left sealed. "I'm guessing it's not the ribs."

For a moment he doesn't speak. The only sound he makes is his jagged breaths and the softest crying she's ever heard.

"I'm just tired," he says, and eases himself back onto the bedroll. "Ah... A little sore. I'm sorry."

"Why?" she demands. "Sorry for what?"

The tears on his face glisten in the poor lamplight. He gives a weary smile. "It's happening again."

She doesn't want to press. She doesn't want to repeat herself. She is sorry she ever asked.

She sits down beside him. He turns his face away and drapes an arm across his eyes. The other hand stays at his throat, clinging to a pendant on a thin silver chain.

"I'm tired of people sacrificing themselves for my sake." He is shaking a little.

"Hawke? Is that what this is about?" From the pain on what she can see of his face she knows the answer. "She didn't do it for your sake. She did it because she knew it would be best for Thedas."

A choked sob escapes him.

"She told me about Merrill," he gasps out. "The mage she loved, back in Kirkwall. Now she's gone. That mage is alone. Just like I was."

"Maybe the two of you can hook up," she tries to joke, and as soon as the words leave her mouth she knows they are the wrong ones.

Another sob shakes him, even stronger this time.

"Maker," he cries. "I loved her."

Hawke? Merrill? She doesn't understand. Unsure of what to do, she gives his shoulder an awkward pat. Don't cry. Stop crying, please.

He rolls sharply toward her. He has her coat in both fists. He curls against her and cries and cries. Not a good thing with his ribs like they are.

"Don't," she says. "You'll make yourself sick."

She starts to put her hand on his head, thinks better of it, lifts it away, finally decides, What difference will it make now? and lets her hand rest on his head. His hair is slick with sweat and she feels a pain in her hand where the Mark still glows. She clenches her hand tight around it. The pain still doesn't stop. So many people died for the Mark. She doesn't want it. She never wanted it.

"I would have stayed." Alistair bites down on his own sob. "I wouldn't have let her..."

It should have been anyone else. If it had been Cassandra... if it had been Leliana... Vivienne, or... anyone. Anyone but a Carta rogue so far out of her depth she was drowning.

"Duncan..." he starts to say, but he's crying too hard for the words to form.

"I know," she says. She doesn't know who Duncan is. She knows nothing about Alistair Therin, apart from his time with the Hero of Fereldan. But she knows this: it hurts to be left behind, with the lives of others dependent on yourself.

He cries himself weak and she lets herself shed the few tears she can manage, running her fingers through his hair and thinking of how different things would be if it had been the Divine who survived and she had been the one to die in the Rift.

"First Duncan. Then... Maker... then Natia." He shudders through a silent sob. "If I'd gone with her she wouldn't be... If she'd taken me I wouldn't have..."

Natia Brosca. The Hero of Fereldan. A casteless dwarf left behind by the wardens, who carried the fate of all of Thedas with her. Who died to protect a world she had only just begun to experience.

"That's probably why she didn't take you," she says.

His eyes drift closed and he seems off-balance. "I know it is."

"She thought you were worth saving." And the Divine had seen something in Cadash worth saving, or thought she had. It was hard to believe that, after Haven, after the templars, after the look on Varric's face the moment he knew Hawke wasn't coming back.

"I would have stayed." His voice grows thin. "I would have fought the nightmare."

"I know you would have. But..." She thinks of the Wardens, lost, turned from their own cause. "But we need you here. I need you here."

"She could have..."

"What's done is done." It's a sharp, angled thing to say, and she knows it. The lantern flickers. The oil in it is getting low.

He's harder to see now. The tent is darker than it was.

"I..." His grip on her coat loosens. His hands are shaking. "I want..."

"We all want, Warden." She leans down and tries to reach the lamp. It's too far. "No one ever said the world is fair."

His breathing is still rough, but the tears seem to have stopped. The light dips lower.

"Hawke knew what she was doing. She knew how important the Wardens are. She knew you could lead them."

The light is all but gone now. Without asking she slides down to lay beside him. For a moment they just breathe.

"I'm so tired," he whispers. She's tired too. She rolls against him and puts her arm around his shoulders.

"There's time." She means there's time to get used to this, time to rest, time to heal before the next crisis. But is there? She doesn't know. There are a lot of things she doesn't know.

The light flickers one last time and goes out.

They lay together. She can see nothing but she can hear him still breathing. It would be cruel to leave him like this. She leans in to tell him she'll stay, but he's closer than she thought he was. In the dark their noses bump together and then their lips brush and he gasps a little. She pulls back quickly. "I'm sorry."

"No," he whispers. "Please don't leave."

Her lips are tingling. One of his hands runs softly up her arm, over the wound the demon left, and touches her neck and then her hair. His hand is rough with blisters and calluses. It shakes against her skin.

She swallows but can't swallow hard enough to clear her heart from her throat. She licks her lips and leans in again. His breath feels heavy against her face and she tips her head to one side and their lips touch one more time.

When they part again he whispers, "I don't know if I... I'm not sure I can..."

"I wouldn't ask you to." She doesn't have the right to ask anything of anyone.

He relaxes just a little and they lean against each other.

"She would have liked you." His voice is faint.

"Who?"

"Natia." He takes a slow shuddery breath. "She would have... the idea that a casteless dwarf could lead then entire Inquisition... she would have loved you."

Love is too strong a word to use on her. She doesn't deserve love. But it's nice of him to say.

She kisses his throat and lets him rest. Tomorrow she'll have to...

But it's not tomorrow yet. Before she can worry about tomorrow she has to get through tonight, and tonight is more than enough.

Beside her Alistair sighs in his sleep. His forehead bumps against her head. There's no denying that he is here.

At least if she's left behind, she hasn't been left behind alone.


End file.
